


Dive Right In(to The Ball Pit)

by WarmthOfRain



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alec Lightwood Loves Magnus Bane, Betaed, Cute Max Lightwood-Bane, Domestic Fluff, Domestic Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood, Family Bonding, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Family Fun Time, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Happy Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood, Immortal Magnus Bane, M/M, Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood Fluff, Malec, Malec Fluff, Max Is Having Fun, The Dads Not So Much, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Warlock Magnus Bane, baking cookies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-12 13:35:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28511292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WarmthOfRain/pseuds/WarmthOfRain
Summary: One look away and Max slips from Alec’s grasp so smoothly, he barely has time to acknowledge it.“Alec!” Magnus half-shouts and Alec turns, seeing the little blue boy disappear inside the sea of balls and other kids.“Fuck,” Alec breathes, going in right after him. Magnus waves away the receptionist, and goes after his boyfriend.“I swear to Raziel, I looked away for one second,” Alec tells Magnus, when they’re waist-high in balls and frantically look for a blue-skinned toddler in the midst of other mundane kids.“Alexander, you know how he is…”//Or, it's family fun time with the Lightwood-Banes, and little Maxie loves to play - what could possibly go wrong?
Relationships: Alec Lightwood & Max Lightwood-Bane, Magnus Bane & Max Lightwood-Bane, Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood
Comments: 10
Kudos: 119





	Dive Right In(to The Ball Pit)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ImaWonder](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImaWonder/gifts).



> This one is for Alice, who gave me the prompt via instagram (a post she'd found about imagining your OTP losing their kid in a ball pit), and for also suggesting the cookie-baking/lego idea.
> 
> I hope this family fluff was good enough for you. <3
> 
> PS. Thank you to my beta, arsistiel. Blame them if you find mistakes, as per usual.

“I don’t understand why we had to come here, of all mundane places.” Alec tells Magnus, staring around the ‘KidVille’ - or an entertainment centre for kids, as the warlock put it. 

“Because,” Magnus says, reaching out for Max’s tiny arm as he tries to pull away towards the first thing he sees - a big climbing tower that looks like a jungle - and tisks him, motioning to his shoes, “Max is too small to do anything resembling an amusement park right now. He’d probably want to go on all the rides and you know I can’t say no to him. This is a good alternative.”

Alec eyes the receptionist, a young man in his twenties, who has a wide smile on. 

“Welcome to KidVille, where your kid can have all the fun in their very own village!” is what comes out of the man’s mouth in the utmost cheerful tone.

Alec’s lips form a thin line.

“Yeah, hi. Um, one kid, I guess?” Alec looks down towards Max. The year and a half old baby stares at the ‘village’ with amazement in his eyes. Alec can still see his blue skin and small nubs of horns, but to mundanes, he’s glamored, as always.

Magnus leans onto the counter, smiling at the guy. “And two very excited adults.” he adds, hooking his elbow to Alec’s. The shadowhunter rolls his eyes at Magnus’ show of unnecessary theatricalities. 

“You only have to pay for the kid, sir, and we have supervisor if you’d like to step aside and relax in our area for the adults-”

“No.” Alec says threatening, and the receptionist steps back a little.

Magnus smiles brightly, hand resting on Alec’s elbow. “He means, that won’t be necessary. We’re here to have fun together, not to have time for ourselves. Besides, he’s a year and a half and...quite a handful.” Magnus smirks at Max, who has now managed to get his boots off with collective effort, “None of your supervisors would come out unscathed.”

With that, the receptionist hands them a ticket with a very wary look on his face. “Have fun!” he says weakly, as they turn away and Magnus scoops Max up.

What follows is a frenzy of Alec and Magnus being torn between various activities that are all ‘the best’ in Max’s eyes.

He tries to go to the climbing tower, but Alec catches him quickly. Max starts to cry and Alec gives in. He lets Max climb while he accompanies him up.

Once up, Max lets go of the climbing nobs and floats in the air, to Alec’s great dismay. Alec quickly snatches his son from the air to sit at the top of the tower. He explains the ‘no levitating’ rule to Max once more, while a red-haired girl that looks to be about 5 stares at them with big rounded eyes in shock.

When they emerge on the floor again, Alec can hear the red-haired girl tell her mother in an excited voice 

_“Mommy, I want to fly, too!”_

Magnus picks Max up from Alec’s grasp and squashes their noses together, making Max giggle. 

“Magnus,” Alec says with admonishment, “We can’t reward bad behavior with love.” 

“But love is always the answer,” Magnus pouts, leaning in to kiss Alec’s cheek, Max trapped in between them. 

“No!” Max protests.

Alec chuckles, leaning back and ruffling Max’s hair. “Okay, okay. Where to next, baby?” Max points at the trampolines and Alec hesitates. “I think papa’s got this one, what do you think, Maxie?”

Magnus glares at him, but Alec grins as the excited warlock baby grabs Magnus’ arm and pulls him towards the trampoline section.

Alec obviously underestimated Magnus, while he should’ve known better. The warlock takes Max in his hands and jumps around with grace worthy of a ballerina.

Magnus blows him a kiss during an extremely complicated pirouette and Alec rolls his eyes. Max is squealing with joy. 

“Show off.” Alec tells Magnus when he gracefully exits the thing, other children eyeing them like they’ve never seen an adult jump in a trampoline centre.

“You’re just a sore loser, darling.” Magnus tells him, while Max demands to have something to drink.

They buy him some fries - because hell, it’s Sunday and they can spoil him this one time - with a juice box. They sit down on the little area with small chairs and tables.

“Okay, obviously, parents come along with the kids,” Alec says, looking around, spotting a few, and then shifts on the small chair, “So why do they only have miniature furniture?”

The shadowhunter almost slips off the chair, shaped like a mushroom, and his feet bump against the table, also a mushroom, painfully. 

Magnus manages not to laugh. “Well,” he says, opening the juice box for Max who is making grabby hands towards it, “I think you look adorable, sitting in such a small chair. The big bad shadowhunter.”

Alec squints his eyes at him, but Magnus winks and the shadowhunter rolls his eyes, helping Max dip the fry into ketchup.

Of course Max flings the ketchup right into his father’s eye and Magnus snorts, snapping his fingers and cleaning Alec off in a sweep.

“Maxie, don’t play with your food.” Alec tells the kid sternly, and Max’s wide eyes look up at Magnus.

“Sowwy.” he mumbles and Magnus’ face melts. 

Alec shakes his head. “Wow, the kid could ask for a unicorn and you’d make it appear for him.” 

“Wasn’t it you who allowed him to have another dragon plushie, when he already has like 3?”

Alec remains silent and Magnus gives him a victorious _‘Ha!’_.

Max coughs and looks up towards the ceiling, pointing. “Staa-as!” he drags out.

Alec and Magnus look up and smile. The ceiling is covered with stickers of stars and moon and planets. 

“That’s right, stars, just like you have at home!” Magnus tells Max, taking him into his lap and feeding him another fry. “Only these don’t twinkle like that, do they?”

Alec takes the rest of the fries and takes out his baby food from his backpack, handing it to his son, while he munches on the fries himself.

He leans over, giving Magnus one, while Max eyes the ceiling while eating his puree from the package.

When their stomachs are full (sort of) and Max is no longer thirsty, Alec says “Maybe he’s going to want to nap now.”

Magnus laughs at the hopefulness in his voice, because Max drags them towards the ball pit.

That’s when things go south, because they usually do when it’s the Lightwood-Banes.

Firstly, the guy from behind the counter comes towards Magnus - successfully distracting Alec for a moment due to the fact that the guy is obviously trying to flirt with the warlock. 

One look away and Max slips from Alec’s grasp so smoothly, he barely has time to acknowledge it.

When Magnus laughs at the receptionist's joke and Alec turns to tell the guy something along the lines of _‘don’t look at my fiance’_ , Max hops into the ball pit.

“Alec!” Magnus half-shouts and Alec turns, seeing the little blue boy disappear inside the sea of balls and other kids.

“Fuck,” Alec breathes, going in right after him. Magnus waves away the receptionist, and goes after his boyfriend.

“I swear to Raziel, I looked away for one second,” Alec tells Magnus, when they’re waist-high in balls and frantically look for a blue-skinned toddler in the midst of other mundane kids.

“Alexander, you know how he is…” 

“Well, if you weren't so busy flirting, maybe you would’ve seen him slip away—“

“What?” Magnus stops mid-movement, a green ball in his left palm and a kid next to him, trying to get past and giving them glares for being in his way. “Alec, you’re impossible,” Magnus tells him, but it’s endearing, and it enrages Alec even more.

“Max!” Alec yells instead, trying to locate their warlock baby. 

“If I could use my magic, I could just fly these balls into the air and we’d find him in a heartbeat.” Magnus says, exasperated.

“Why don’t you ask that receptionist, I bet he has some useful tips on how to get your kid out of the ball pit.” Alec grumbles, throwing balls behind his back, hoping he doesn’t hit anyone.

“What?” Magnus asks, distracted.

“Wait, what was that?” Alec asks in counter, seeing a flash of blue sparks, “Did you do that?”

Magnus’ head whips towards where Alec is pointing and they see Max floating a few colourful balls just above two other kids, who are trying to grab them mid-air.

“Yeah, let’s bring a warlock baby to a mundane kid’s entertainment center,” Alec grumbles, swimming towards his son, “What’s the worst that could happen?”

Magnus eyerolls and dives for the little warlock, but Max sees them. His eyes lit up in mischief and unmistakably, he thinks that this is a chasing game.

As fast as he appeared, he is gone again, and Alec looks around, panicking.

“Screw this,” he says to Magnus, “Just use your magic.”

Magnus seems to be thinking the same thing. “Wait,” he replies, snaps his fingers towards the outside of the pit - there are only a few people there, but still, it would raise questions, should they see anything.

Magnus glamours the whole ball pit and then, without preamble, lifts the balls with all the kids into the air. 

Alec sees Max floating there right away and grabs his foot, pulling him into his lap. He gives Magnus a thumbs-up and the warlock lowers everyone safely onto the ground again. 

“Max, that was not nice. Don’t run away from us like that.” Alec tells him, but Max gives him a judging look.

“I think he knows that it was us who lost him,” Magnus cooes, kissing their son on the cheek, making Max giggle.

“Daddy did bad.” Max says, almost wistfully and Magnus looks towards Alec. 

“Hey, your papa is as much to blame!” the shadowhunter protests and Max side-eyes Magnus.

Magnus sends out small sparks his way, making them colourful like fireworks. Max watches in awe and concludes “Papa good.”

Alec glares at Magnus. “You don’t play fair.”

Magnus shrugs, and smirks at Alec. “Oh come on, Maxie loves you.”

“Yeah, because we’re making cookies tonight, aren’t we!” Alec says in a baby voice, nuzzling Max and the warlock baby hiccups between laughing.

“Alright, alright. Let’s get home and have that nap. Then you can try and make cookies.” Magnus says, looking around for Max’s boots.

“What do you mean, try? I can bake cookies.” 

Magnus waves his hand absentmindedly, “Whatever you say, darling. Where’s the-” he finds Max’s other boot and puts it on him.

“There we go, blueberry. Ready to leave?”

Max yawns in reply and is asleep before they get to the back alley to make a portal.

Back at home, Max sleeps for almost two hours, which leaves plenty of time for Alec and Magnus to debate over who was actually at fault of losing their son in a ball pit.

The debate doesn’t escalate any further than “You were holding his hand, Alexander,” because Alec cuts him off with a kiss and says “We’ve got two hours and I’m not spending it on an argument that we clearly know I’ll win.” 

Magnus is ready to protest, but Alec’s hands slide to his hips and back him up against the bedroom door, leaving him no room for argument. Or no room for a lot of anything , really.

After an hour, Alec is sitting on the bed, against the headboard and reaching for his shirt, when Magnus comes back with a bottle of water and climbs onto his lap.

“Magnus, we gotta get dressed.” he says to his fiance, but Magnus smirks, handing over the water bottle.

“I already summoned all the ingredients for your so called cookies, so you don’t need to go shopping. Come on,” he gives Alec his best puppy-dog eyes, “Cuddle with me for a minute?”

Alec gives in, as always and they end up falling asleep for a solid 5 minutes, before Max comes in, wobbling and dropping down on the floor occasionally, before he gets up on his feet again and pulls at the blanket.

“Daddy!” He yells loud and Alec shoots upright.

“I’m awake!” he says and hears Magnus yawn next to him.

“I feel more dead than alive.” the warlock says and Alec rubs his own eyes. Their son has a judgemental face on, as he stares up at them.

“Cwookies!” Is the only thing he says, pouting and Alec sighs.

“I know, baby. Come on.” He gets up, throws on a shirt and his sweats, scoops Max in his arms and leads him into the kitchen before setting him on the counter.

“Can you be a good boy and stay put?”

Max nods dutifully and Alec commences in getting out the ingredients and other things, while simultaneously, making sure Max doesn’t fall off or melt down the set of knives, because obviously the kid won’t stay put.

“How are my two favorite boys doing?” Magnus chooses to appear 10 minutes later, watching as Alec throws flour into the air, covering his own hair as well as Max’s. The boy giggles uncontrollably and Magnus sets his elbows on the counter.

He smiles brightly at the two, tilting his head a little. 

Alec boops Max’s nose, covering it in flour as well and he sneezes adorably. Alec does the same just a second later.

“Alright, you two. You might be adorable, but let’s clean this mess?” Magnus snaps his fingers, making them clean and comes over to wrap his arms around Alec’s waist, kissing his cheek.

Alec turns and gives him a kiss on the lips instead. Magnus licks his own lips and squints at Alec. “You ate the dough without me?” 

Alec produces the bowl Max has been playing with, a little dough at the bottom.

Magnus takes it, kisses Alec once more and announces “I ducking love you.”

Alec snorts, eyeing Max and then getting him down from the counter.

“Why don’t we play with legos until the cookies are done?”

Max commences in a babble of what kind of town he will be building and drags Alec down with him. Magnus stays on the couch, eating the dough and watching them play.

“Put that on the top, Blue.” Magnus tells Max, when the boy picks up a piece resembling a red flag.

Max does and Magnus claps. Max seems proud of himself and Alec shares a small, soft smile with his boyfriend.

There’s a ‘ding’ and Alec gets up before Magnus can. “I got it.”

The cookies aren’t burnt and Alec silently thanks whatever angel helped him out. He couldn’t have lived it down if Magnus would’ve been right, again.

As he comes back with a bowl of the cookies, he sees Magnus on the ground, showing Max how to change the colours of the legos with his magic. 

Magnus had said that Max can’t control his magic, but it’s never too soon to learn. Baby steps, as Magnus had replied when Alec asked how they should go about it.

The shadowhunter smiles, almost not wanting to interrupt them. But the smell of cookies makes Max raise his head and forget about legos.

“Gimme,” he says, grabbing for them. Alec gives him a look and Max ducks his head. “Pwease?”

Alec kisses the top of his head, before he gives him a cookie and moves them to the couch.

“What are we watching?” Magnus asks, snapping a blanket on them all, Max in between them with the bowl of cookies.

Max roars and holds up the cookie, waving it around.

“Lion king?” Alec asks him and Max nods, banging the cookie against the edge of the bowl. Magnus laughs and takes the cookie, breaking it into smaller pieces.

“Too long in the oven.” he comments and Alec sighs.

“Yeah, I know.” he says, sad, but Magnus reaches to turn his head towards him. 

“They’re perfect, just like you.” he says and leans over to kiss him, as good as he can, when there’s a toddler between them. 

Max makes an impatient sound and Magnus pulls back. “Aren’t you sassy today?” Magnus leans down to help Max break the cookie into smaller parts again, while Alec puts the cartoon on.

After about a cookie and a half, and 30 minutes, Max demands to have water.

Magnus gets up, while Alec stays to entertain Max.

Coming back with the glass, Alec halts, watching as Magnus pretends to attack Max with a claw.

The little warlock baby laughs that cute little baby laugh of his, sparks flying as he tries to reach Magnus’ hand.

Magnus dives down and tickles him, letting Max pull at his hair. It always amazes Alec because, really, Magnus wouldn’t let anyone touch his hair, ever.   
But Max loves to play with them, pull at the colourful strands gently and the glitter falling out making him excited, like he doesn’t quite understand where it’s coming from.

“Who’s our little troublemaker?” Magnus asks, kissing Max’s cheek and nuzzling him, the baby giggling now, his puffy cheeks looking even more puffier.

“He gets that from you,” Alec decides to interfere, reaching over to give Magnus the glass, so he can let Max drink.

Alec watches them, leaning onto the couch. 

His very own family is something he hadn’t even been considering. Living in the world they did, there never seemed to be time to consider the possibility, let alone talk about it. 

But, there’s no one better to be a father with than Magnus. Alec feels his heart swell as Magnus gently wipes the trail of water from Max’s chin and places him back between them.

“Alec?”

Magnus’ voice shakes Alec out of his trance and he looks over to his warlock.

Magnus’ hair is all messed up because of Max, eyes slightly tired, wearing sweats and a T - shirt, but he’s never looked more beautiful to Alec. 

“Is dad going to come watch with us or is he thinking of ways on how to bail?” Magnus laughs and Alec shakes his head, dropping back to his seat.

“Never in a million years.” he replies, kissing Magnus on the top of his head before snuggling Max back into the blanket between them.

Magnus lays another one on the two of them, covering Max with a second layer and presses play.

Max watches excitedly as the small lion, that isn’t king just yet, sings about how he one day will be.

Alec looks over to Magnus and sees that he’s already staring back.

“What?” Alec asks him, but there’s a small smile on his lips now. 

Magnus opens his mouth, but closes it again, smiling.

His hand goes to Alec’s cheek above Max and the warlock’s eyes on Alec are soft.

“Of all the people in the world, I never expected you, Alexander Lightwood. And yet, you’re the only one I needed.”

Alec’s heart beats loud in his chest, the feeling of love so painful it’s almost unbearable. Almost.

“You stole my line.” Alec tells him and Magnus laughs softly, the ringed finger grazing Alec’s cheek once, twice.

“Keep telling yourself that, sweetheart.” Magnus whispers, and Alec realizes their son has fallen asleep, head in Magnus’ lap.

“I love you.” Alec says to the small warlock and then looks back to Magnus, “I love you.”

Magnus leans in, kissing him softly on the lips. Once.

Twice.

“Aku cinta kamu.” 

Magnus leans back, Max positioned so that Alec can lay down with him.

The shadowhunter cuddles their son in his hands, head going down to rest on Magnus lap, as the warlock leans against the armrest. 

After a few seconds of silence, Magnus whispers, “I’m telling Maryse that you lost our son in the ball pit.”

“Magnus!” Alec exhales, hearing Magnus laugh as quietly as he can manage above him.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, my fellow Yees and Haws!
> 
> Back at it with the Lightwood-Banes. If you liked this, let me know (you might need to see a therapist).
> 
> You can also find me on:  
> Instagram: warmthofrain  
> Wattpad: WarmthOfRain  
> Twitter: rain_warmth  
> Tumblr: malecbaby
> 
> See you on the other side of the ball pit, bitches! x


End file.
